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Topic: Radio Dramas: Worth the bother? (Read 2024 times)

I've got an opportunity to hear the radio dramas, but they're pretty long, and would take up quite a bit of room on my hard drive "bookshelf," so I'm wondering if they'd be worth the download "purchase."

I'm not much for EU, but I've always heard that these were really well-done and I've always been a little curious about them.

Any of you guys heard them? Good? Bad? Neither? All opinions welcomed.

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"The good news is that all that blood is actually ketchup. The bad news, however, is that all that ketchup is actually blood."

Hmmm, I'm maybe biased but I actually enjoyed the Radio Dramas (and novels) because they include material that basically was planned for the films but edited out. Like the ROTS comic (and novel?) included scenes of Vos getting blown away during Order 66 I guess and stuff like that, the Radio Dramas covered a lot of ground I personally found neat...

Now... What I find neat, and what you find neat, are probably different things. Like some opening stuff to The Empire Strikes Back Radio Drama is REALLY neat to me because it covers some military stuff and Luke's rise to leading Rogue Squadron and things...

I think the infamous Veers sequence excised from ESB is in the Radio Drama... Stuff like that's cool to me.

They're neat I think, but yeah they're definitely long. If you've got time to kill some weekend, I personally think you should check them out (and burn them lend them to me because I don't own them all ). I think I listened to them one Summer between semesters just killing time... It's been a while.

They're cool though I think, but like I said they're cool to me because of very nerdish reasons and not because they are things that'll knock you off your feet. They're just different from the films enough, and add to them in a weird way, that I have an interest in them.

Oh, and it's weird but lots of recognizable names did voices, even just supporting crap or bit stuff, throughout the 3 shows... Including:

Yeardley Smith

David Allen Grier

Ed Asner

And lots of others too... Brock Peters, Jon Lithgow, Ed Begley Jr., and I was looking through and there's an assload of people that after you look them up you realize who they are (Mothma's voice is played by a lady that had a recurring role in ST: The Next Generation, a Federation Admiral. That's geekishly interesting).

Anyway, yeah, they're weird and I liked them. Oh and the whole Luke/Anchorhead thing (and then some) is included... It's interesting to hear it even if you can't see it. It covers a lot of ground on Luke that the films don't cover and sort of build up his character a lot in a positive way I think.

(Yes, that's as good as it gets for any pics involving Meshach Taylor and Mannequin on the internet, apparently. He's in there, too, if Wikipedia is to be believed.)

What's even more bizarre is that, evidently, they were directed by this guy:

Now this is where Luke hacks Vader's hand off! Boom!

No, I don't much care for the EU, and the military aspect of SW doesn't interest me like it does you. I've always been curious as to how the characters and scenes are fleshed out, and from what I understand, the radio dramas do a pretty good job of that. So that's what I'm mostly interested in. . . mostly.

I guess the best way to do it would be to "buy" ANH, and see what I think of that before "buying" the others.

« Last Edit: March 26, 2007, 11:31 AM by Matt »

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"The good news is that all that blood is actually ketchup. The bad news, however, is that all that ketchup is actually blood."

Consider this then... Are the edited out things "EU" to you? If you look at them as pretty much a part of the movie, you'll like the Radio Dramas. I believe every known edited sequence, and some unknown ones, are mixed into the dramas... I might be wrong on that though as it has been a long time since I listened to all 3, but I believe everything from Luke's T-16 race to Jerjerrod's attempted heroism at the end of Jedi are all there... Just hearing how they were intended to be shot/slipped into the storyline is kickass to me.

The military stuff is really just an aside... It's just more cut stuff from the films I guess.

If it's stuff that Lucas or the screenwriter came up with, then I guess not. If it's stuff some other hack came up with, and put in as filler, then yeah. It's been over fifteen years since I read the novelization for the first and only time, and I've forgotten what all was in there and what wasn't.

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If you look at them as pretty much a part of the movie, you'll like the Radio Dramas.

Yeah, you're probably right. I think I'll give the first one a shot, and see how I like it.

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"The good news is that all that blood is actually ketchup. The bad news, however, is that all that ketchup is actually blood."

I'm 99% sure the Radio Dramas aren't really changed from the novelizations except for text/lines editing and things, less narrative stuff... Otherwise they follow the novelizations which I guess follow the final scripts (pre-film edits) fairly closely for all 6 films (well, 3 in this case).

I could be wrong on that... I just recall at least ANH matching up REALLY well to the novel.

Sound effects were good. Score was good. It was neat to hear how the scenes were fleshed out, and how the gaps were filled in for the stuff that happens off-screen. Now, how much of that was Brian Daley, and how much was Lucas, I don't know. Guess I'll need to read the novel again to find out, if I'm interested (which I'm not).

But some of the voices were just too far off. The guy playing Ben, especially (and he has a ton of dialogue, too, which doesn't help). After seeing the movie literally hundreds of times, and memorizing not only the lines, but the tone and inflection, it's a bit jarring to hear someone else's take on it.

It was also a little annoying to hear the additions to the on-screen dialogue. What I mean is, the stuff that they had to put in there to describe the actions that we see on screen. For example, instead of just seeing Luke turn his lightsaber on for the first time, Ben has to mention what's happening, for the radio audience: "Hit that button, and the blade will materialize out of thin air." I understand it--Star Wars is a very visual movie, and the stuff that viewers take for granted might not make sense for someone who was only listening, hence the additional explanations, but that doesn't mean that it's not a little unnatural-sounding.

I'm glad to have heard it (I have been curious about the radio dramas ever since hearing about them years ago), but at this point I'm not sure I'll bother with the other two. On one hand, it would go against my completist nature to grab the first and not the other two. Plus, I'd really like to hear John Lithgow's take on Yoda. On the other hand, there are apparently some problems with the copy of Empire. Plus, they're huge and long (twss), and given how apathetic I am about the first one, I'm not sure I'd enjoy the other two enough to really make them worth it.

Anyway, no matter what I decide, I'll keep everybody (meaning Jesse) apprised of the situation.

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"The good news is that all that blood is actually ketchup. The bad news, however, is that all that ketchup is actually blood."

I just found this thread, sorry . It is interesting to hear your guys' takes on these, because I've considered trying to get a hold of these before as well. I listened to portions of these a few years back, and it was neat to hear them from the "extras" standpoint, but never really listened to an entire "movie" beginning to end.